Mom

I wonder if my mother knows she's a ghost. 

Tonight, for the fourth night in a row, I witnessed her haunting my home. The first time, she was in that old dusty pink nightgown she wore so often in my childhood that it seemed like an extra appendage. Her hair was a thick, wild mess atop her head, her veiny chicken legs were glowing pale in the near darkness of my hallway, and she had the usual smudged black makeup around her eyes that had always given her a haggard, raccoon like appearance.

Turning the corner to find her there swaying and staring unblinkingly past me had been so shocking that my mug slipped through my fingers and shattered on the floor, the hot tea burning my toes. And that hadn't even been my reaction to seeing the ghost of my mother. Upon seeing her, I had truly thought that she had broken into my house. 

It wasn't until I looked back up from my scalding toes to find a hallway devoid of anything mother-like that I realized, of course, she was not here. I was only sleep deprived. Stressed. Moving back into my childhood home after my father's passing has, predictably, ushered in some difficult feelings. Surely, I told myself, I was just seeing the past, seeing her where I had experienced her worst moments.

I haven't seen my mother since I cut her off years ago, a decision I've never once regretted considering the pain she has put our family through. But, she is my mother. And despite the image I saw of her being the groggy, messy, hungover version of her that characterized half of my childhood, I know, especially with the absence of my father, that I miss having my mother. So, I convinced myself it was psychological. 

Then, the second night. Sitting in the living room I largely avoided throughout my formative years, I caught a flash of pink move behind me from the reflection of the TV. Reflexively, I turned to catch the movement behind me, only to find an empty kitchen. I hadn't realized I was wound so tightly until my shoulders sagged in relief. A pink flash could've been anything. A trick of the light, most likely. 

But then, faint but undeniable, I heard my name coming from the hallway. It was her voice. My mother, calling for me. 

My body went rigid, my head turning slowly to stare down the dark hallway as my palms began to sweat and my heart lodged in my throat. It was weird how easily the sound transported me back in time, turning me into a little eight year old girl who finds no fault with her mother but still fears her wrath. When I was little, I loved her so much that sometimes I couldn't feel comfortable in my own skin unless we were in the same room. More than a few times it drove her to hysterics, how unwilling I was to leave her side. The screaming and the sobbing and the unfair insults still didn't make me love her less, but I learned a little bit of fear. Learned how to tell what was coming just from the way my name sounded from her mouth. 

Hearing it that first time, it was gentle and sweet, like she was about to ask me for a hug. It was so clear that I had a difficult time convincing myself, but as my nails dug into my palms I told myself that I was just missing having mother, that I was reacting funny to being in this house. The mind is capable crazy things. Especially in times of grief.

Then she called my name again, this time in an angry, gritty hiss. An impatient snap. I flinched as my cat shot up from her place on her tree, jumping to the floor to trot over to the entrance of the hallway and let out a long meow. If my cat had heard it, then there was no way it was just in my head. 

It took me thirty minutes to calm myself down enough to even stand up. My cat did not move from her place that whole time and my mother did not call out to me again. But, as though waiting for me to do something, as soon as I stood on my shaky legs, a loud crash came from down the hall that sent my cat flying toward the kitchen and me, against all reasoning, flying toward my bedroom. 

Throwing open the door to the room that used to belong to her, I wasn't surprised to find my lamp overturned by my bed. I was more surprised at how quickly I believed it was my mother that had done it. This obviously was not in my head, and tossing a lamp was very much something she would do. 

As soon as I walked into the room, the door to the en-suite slammed shut so forcefully that the floor vibrated under my feet and I let out an involuntary shriek, stumbling backward into the hall. Then she whispered directly into my ear.

"Baby, it's okay–"

I screamed again, loud enough that my throat burned. Trying to pivot away, my body moved too quickly for my feet and I slammed into the ground, my tailbone erupting in pain and my teeth piercing my tongue. 

For a while, I saw there with a throbbing back and blood pooling in my mouth, frozen in shock. I had never believed in ghosts, but this wasn't something I could just tell myself was happening in my head. I was hearing her, seeing her. A lamp was broken and my cat was scared. This was a ghost. 

Except, as far as I knew, my mother was alive. 

It was sudden fear at the realization that she could have died without me knowing that scraped me up from the floor. The rest of the night was spent internet stalking to try to find traces of her. I eventually fell asleep on the couch without finding any signs of life. I spent the whole next day texting various family members and friends to see if they had seen or spoken to her recently. Evening came around and nobody who had deigned to answer had seen her. One of her long time friends gave me the less than comforting suggestion that she could be on a bender. 

I saw her again while grappling with the fact that she was probably dead, and had died alone. 

I was cooking ramen when I smelled the smoke. Cigarettes were a smell I often associated with her, so I knew instantly that she near. Turning slowly from the stove, I saw her sitting at the table with a cigarette in hand, head bowed and strings of hair falling from her bun over her face. 

This time, a fleeting sensation of relief hit me before the terror took over. There she was, a ghost at my kitchen table, drunkenly swaying in that damned pink nightgown, a strap falling down her shoulder and the cigarette turning to ash in her hand. My mother, not corporeal, but there, real. 

I started to shake, only able to blink at the form and wonder if I wanted it to disappear or acknowledge me. She wasn't making any noise, or at least I couldn't hear anything past my heart pounding in my ears. She didn't even seem to register that she wasn't alone. 

I didn't know anything about ghosts beyond how they're portrayed in horror movies. I did, however, know a lot about my mother. I knew, or feared, that if I tried to get her attention and it worked, she was likely to explode or disappear. If she was truly dead, as her appearance in my home seemed to indicate, I didn't want her to go before I got to properly say goodbye. But the rational side of me with somewhat of a survival instinct screamed to run, call a priest or pagan, and sell the house. 

After a few seconds tears accompanied the shaking as I stared down the woman at my table. I didn't know what they were from. The fact that I now knew my mother was dead and I hadn't known? The realization that this was my second time seeing her in almost a decade? Or maybe just plain, pure fear at the idea of there being a ghost in my house? Whatever it was, the feeling of the tears slipping down my cheeks snapped me out of my frozen state and I turned around to turn the stove off. With my body facing away, I sucked in a deep breath, preparing myself for her to suddenly pop up in my face in scream like in a shitty straight to DVD horror film. I counted to ten, mind absent of any logical explanations for both situation and my behavior, and finally turned back. The kitchen was completely empty.

"Mom?" I called out automatically, sounding like a scared kid lost in a store. As soon as I had done it, I regretted it, not understanding why any part of me would want her to come back.

My cat sulked into the kitchen, meowing up at me as more senseless tears poured down my face, slipping past my chin and onto the linoleum. 

"Don't cry, baby," my mother's voice called from the hallway, warm and comforting. I flinched, instinctively reaching to wipe my face.

I waited for something else to happen all night. My hands never stopped shaking and I jumped at every small noise but I almost wanted her to come back. I slept in the couch again and dreamed of her holding me when I was small, singing lullabies. 

Tonight, she showed up standing in front of my TV. I had been obsessively scrolling through her Facebook page when a sinking feeling in my gut forced my eyes up. She looked just as she had the last two times she appeared, but now she was looking directly at me with hazy, expressionless gray eyes, swaying so badly that every time she leaned one way it looked like she was about to topple. 

"Mom?" I called quietly, hating how much I sounded like a child. Having spent the whole day researching ghosts, I had come to the conclusion that she was here with unfinished business. No doubt that business was me. I needed to help her.

She blinked, her face still blank as her hands came up to rest on her stomach. Slowly, her water line filled with a dark liquid, turning the already reddened whites of her eyes a hue almost as pink as her dress. Her mouth opened, cracked lips forming an 'o' but nothing coming out. Thick, red tears began to roll down her cheeks, slow at first, then turning into full rivers of blood, smearing her hallowed cheeks as her eyes turned so red that they almost looked black. 

I scrambled up in horror, crawling over the back of the couch, letting out terrified involuntary gasps as the tears of blood dropped from her chin onto the nightgown. 

"Mom, please," I whimpered, unsure what I was asking for as my own tears began to fall. At the sound of my pleading, she stepped closer and I noticed the dark red splotch under hands, blossoming out past her stomach and spreading to saturate the lower half of her dress. Blood began dripping down her legs, oozing onto her toes and the carpet. I stumbled back into the kitchen as she took agonizingly slow steps toward me. With each step something else seemed to start bleeding. Dark liquid trickled from the corner of her cracked lip, then with another step, it began to cascade out of her mouth, painting her neck and chest crimson. My back hit the counter behind me as she stepped onto the couch, swayed, then stepped over it, leaving a trail of blood in her wake.

"Mom, please, stop," I cried, pushing myself backward as if the counter would give and allow me to continue my escape. She kept stalking forward, eyes drilling into me as blood began pouring from her ears and nose. Helplessly, I sank down onto the floor, digging my hands into my hair and squeezing my eyes closed. I was nine years old again, begging my mom to stop, unable to bear witness to the monstrous side of her. 

I could still hear blood dripping onto the floor and slow, quiet thuds as she took a step forward every few seconds. I kept telling myself that my mother wouldn't hurt me. She had scared me all my life but she would not physically hurt me. Not like this. 

I was sobbing so hard that I stopped being able to hear anything but myself. Losing all sense, I started begging for her to leave. My voice cracked and turned into frantic whispers as I curled up into a ball and dug my palms into my eyes, whispering over and over again pleas for her to stop.

Eventually, my cat meowed and I realized I couldn't hear footsteps or dripping blood. Something furry nuzzled against my ankle, making me flinch. With as much courage as I could muster, I peeled my hands away from my eyes and blinked the black spots away from my vision to find my cat sitting in front of me, rubbing her head against my leg. 

Hurriedly, I scooped her up and ran in the living room to grab my phone. A brief moment was taken to appraise the carpet, only finding familiar cola stains and cat fur. It was as though it had never happened. 

As I left, a part of me hesitated, wanting to stay, to see her again. Maybe, if I could manage to set my fear aside I could help her get her message across and move on. I couldn't help her in life, but perhaps I could in death. The only way she knew how to communicate her emotions was through anger and fear, and what had just happened was clearly her trying to do just that. 

But I wasn't brave enough to stay. 

Now, I'm at a friend's house. I haven't been able to tell her what really happened. I came up with some lie about hearing noises outside of my house and being afraid someone was trying to break in. It's been three hours and I haven't been able to sleep for even a second. I've just been laying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, trying to will away the hellish images of my bleeding mother and remember better ones. For so many years, the only memories of her that I could conjure were painful ones. Being unable to shake her out of bed when I was too young to feed myself. Her screaming in my face, the smell of whiskey making me nauseous. But now, I'm remembering picnics at the park down the street, her laughter as she chases me around with threats of hugs and kisses. Dancing in the kitchen as she cooks my favorite meatloaf. Splashing in puddles as we walked to the store together. 

I thought I had mourned the loss of that version of my mother a long time ago, but now I'm sobbing over her, quietly begging her to move on as though her ghost can hear me from miles away. 

After a couple more hours of sleeplessness, I open my laptop and begin searching for information on real ghosts. I'm growing increasingly frustrated at the lack of anything helpful, my puffy face throbbing as more tears threaten to spill, when a quiet chime makes me flinch. A message pops up in the corner of my screen, my mother's childhood friend. I click on it, my breath catching in my throat.

I had breakfast with your mother this morning. She's doing well.